The In Between Time and Space
by phriendly11
Summary: Michael Vaughn and the Rambaldi Temple of Doom (rated for language)


The in-between time and space

Hillary (aliasfanfiction@hotmail.com)

Cover Me :challenge- November. 

r- for language, (Vaughn POV) strange, strange practically a/u.

summary: Michael Vaughn and the Temple of Rambaldi.  

spoilers: "counteragent."

disclaimer: I only play at the amusement park, I don't own the rides.

notes at end

* * * *

There are times in ones life where the boundaries of our existence become challenged, where it becomes possible to exist in another place entirely. Where the details are so real that they seem impossible to question, the intricacies of life so convincingly ornate that we feel like everything makes sense to us only because it can not possibly be denied or labeled as false. 

                                                                * * * *

"You will tell me" The woman opposite me asked, quite evenly. I scowled.

"I'd rather not." I replied, drolly, finding my voice surprisingly nonchalant and even. 

SMACK.

She exerted quite a bit of force into her slap, and it caused my cheek to burn instantly. If my hands had been free, I would have reached up to rub at the irritated skin. Unfortunately, however, I was securely attached to the chair I presently sat upon, hands twisted in thick rope, feet in similar fashion.

There was no getting loose. 

"I asked where she was! Tell me!" Voice gravelly, low, commanding, I stared up at the woman who had spent the last few days acting as my interrogator. Despite all my efforts to break her with a fixed stare or a haughty expression, she seemed to ignore every single one of my deterrents or insults. It was frustrating, her ignorance of my unabashed hatred for both her and her hair.

 My capture and subsequent detainment for questioning was nearly unexpected. Sure, I had anticipated some risks to the task at hand, but none as intricate as the current obstacle I had was currently being forced to endure.

Add that I had no clue where I was. Add that I'd been here for several days, and no one had offered so much as a glass of water. 

"I won't tell you anything!" I responded angrily this time, tired with the redundancy of her questions and my own answers. She pressed on, pulling a large length of leather up from the floor. I hadn't noticed her bring it in, but was unsurprised to see it all the same. Seemed like something she would do. Predictable. 

"You'll tell me." The strap came down with a sickening thud on my shoulder. She had strength enough to make me wince, and I resented her power in causing me so much pain. She brought it down against my hands behind my back, lashing at the cuticles. 

"I don't know." I lied, easily. It was one she had heard before, and she twisted her face in a frown that was more a grimace than anything else.

"You'll regret your dishonestly, Agent Vaughn." She told me, before slapping the leather against the already inflamed skin on my cheek, again.

                                                                * * * *  

I awoke some time later, face still flaming, arms and legs aching from my restraints.

Despite the discomfort- and let me assure you, that was putting it quite mildly, for there was no pain like the mixture of cramping muscles, brusied skin, and aching hunger- I still did not intend to reveal anything to this woman. She'd no doubt return with more tools geared for torture, but my silence was relentless. I no more planned to confess than attempt to strike a deal with my tormentor.

I planned to take it. Pray, a little, on the off-chance of a rescue, but knowing the CIA and knowing the shroud of classified dossiers surrounding my absence, I had no hope for anyone to find me.

Certainly not Sydney. She'd gone missing weeks before; off with her father on some hunt for the shiny prize of yet another incomprehensible Rambaldi artifact. I hadn't heard from her in twelve days, and had embarked on my search of Albania for her visage or her corpse, either way; I had set out to find her.

And, in the process, had unwillingly gotten captured by a strange set of people who believed themselves the heir to Rambaldi's secret. The children of the eye, or some sort of foolish nonsense. They were just crazy enough to think me a valuable tool in their search for the "heiress to the Rambaldi throne" to torture in their formidable dungeons.

The large door opened with a creak and there again, she stood. Red hair in a mess around her face, petite- a misleading clue, for her size did not diminish the strength of her forceful hands or the crack of her leather whip. Piercing grey eyes stared back at me with something like disgust. 

I turned my head, waiting for a blow. But none came.

"Without your assistance, we have located the heiress to our throne." She told me, bitterly, moving behind the chair. "And she has ordered your release."

I looked at her, mouth agape. This whole throne mess was both amusing and sad. What crackpot had they found to take the "rightful place", I wondered?  Surely it wasn't Sydney. The red-haired wannabe dominatrix had explained the woman in the Rambaldi prophecy to me- she even had a copy of the same document that the CIA had in lockdown, and that had looked authentic, but I had never given her as much as a name. In fact, I feigned unawareness and mostly set about informing her that she was crazy when the picture was even brought into my line of vision.

Her hands busied with my ropes. As each wrist became free I thought momentarily about using them to close around her neck, but thought against it. She was crazy, insane, but she was releasing me.  I thought it best to not attempt to kill her just yet. However, her punishments would not go unwarranted, I'd have my chance at the smooth skin of her throat in due time, I promised it to myself.  

"You will follow me. My people have prepared a bath. And clean clothes" She wrinkled her nose at my state of dress, soiled and torn. If anything I was instantly thankful for the chance to get clean. My imprisonment had not been the most sterile of all experiences. "And then I shall take you to our dark mistress."

Perhaps she meant someone else, I reasoned. After all, I thought we had dismissed Sydney as the bringer of Rambaldi's strange prophecy with the whole climbing of the mountain. She couldn't mean Sydney. There had to be some crazy girl that looked enough like the drawing that they had captured and convinced to play it off.  Honestly, I still had a hard time believing the bunk behind the man, but 500 year old magical music boxes and the power struggle behind the agencies…and other organizations like SD-6 and the Alliances' search for the countless artifacts were mildly convincing. This convincing, however, was rebuked by the woman leading me up stairs that were lined with the eye of Rambaldi beneath each footfall. She, and her organization, was such a joke.

Kooky, yes. I thought mildly. Fucked up, yes. I managed to make the top of the stairs, the yawning ache in my stomach amplified with the exertion, the climbing adding stress to my already stiff muscles.

Being tied to a chair for a few days had no advantages I could think of.

                                                                * * * *

Quite some time later, after a leisurely bath in a massive, ancient bathtub and the replacement of my tattered clothes with new, fresh pants and a rather thin shirt, I was lead down another Rambaldi-artifact lined hallway to a massive room lined with multi-colored tapestries and a multitude of stained glass windows. The walls were covered in fabric and massive oil paintings. I scanned them quickly, finding that most of them were of Rambaldi or someone from similar era. I paused over an oil canvas that carried the exact image of that within the Mona Lisa, surprised at how it appeared almost completely authentic to the original, even from the distance. I could see the brush strokes on canvas from where I stood, and stopped to look at it more carefully.

"Is that," I asked, pointing at the portrait. My escort followed my finger and huffed.

"Milo's version. The two held a contest as to who could paint her best. Milo lost."  She told me, full of disdain. "Ridiculous."

Her demeanor changed as we neared the center of the hall. She stood ramrod straight, eyes fixed ahead. I followed the eyes of my captor and saw the multitudes of other "followers" that crowded along the walls. Seemed there were more eye of Rambaldi people than I thought, and I thanked the "dark mistress"; whoever she was, for my rescue. The red-headed witch of a woman at my side extended her finger towards a rather large, high backed chair at the end of the hall.

"You'll go and thank her now," she said, evenly, pushing me in the direction of the huge throne looking chair. "You'll thank her for extending your life."

I nodded, the energy to argue spent, treading to the chair. I felt the eyes of the "followers" on me as I crossed the stone floor, approaching the chair cautiously, inwardly hoping that whoever it was, she'd be either kind enough to release me, or stupid enough for me to eventually convince her to release me.

I stopped a foot from the chair, swallowed, and made my way around it.

Relief flooded me as I saw who graced the golden-pillow filled throne. It _was Sydney. _

"Sydney." I breathed, quite happy to see her alive and well. I was about to launch into thanks when she raised her hand, eyes fixing upon mine, unwavering.

She looked odd, I thought, staring at her with her hair down and around her shoulders, her body wrapped in some sort of velvet cloak like thing. Geez, these Ramabaldi brethren really took things to the next level, I mused, waiting for her to speak.

"Michael Vaughn" He voice was flat, nearly toneless. Her eyes- they became half-lidded and barely open. Michael Vaughn? - The formality was unnerving. "I welcome you to the brothers and sisters of Rambaldi."

She spoke in monotone.  Her eyes bored into mine and she did not blink. It was like she was looking through me, not at me, and the appraisal brought a strange shiver down my spine that was something like fear.

What had they done to her? I wondered. 

"Aren't you happy I saved your life?" She raised her voice so that her entourage could hear her words. "Aren't you glad that my brothers and sisters in the eye have helped me see my true purpose?"

I stared at her, opened mouth and gaping, for what felt like five full minutes. What the hell was she talking about? How could they have hoodwinked her into believing the whole death and destruction line?

"You'll need to eat, then?" Sydney who was not Sydney at all asked, her voice almost...regal, taking my silence as compliance, I guess. 

This was fucked up. Supremely so. I felt like John Crichton, having just arrived on some alien space ship and unable to speak the language. Maybe I was dreaming. Maybe this was some fucked up Twilight Zone episode spinning out of control; a fictional character in some other fictional universe.

Or maybe she was possessed. Or drugged. I could accept the latter as a very real possibility, so I closed my mouth, and nodded.

"I'm starving." I admitted, trying to see if her pupil's were dilated as she rose and pointed at a table I had not noticed when I entered.

"Then eat, Michael Vaughn." 

Giving her another quizzical look- recoiling, when she didn't even seem to notice. Drugged. She was definitely drugged.

But with what?

                                                                * * * *

Even if you added a bucket and a bed, a dungeon was still a dungeon. However, one thing could alter it just slightly, and in my case, it was that the stone cell had a new occupant. Jack Bristow.

I had to admit, the feast was nice, and the people got stranger and stranger with every bite, and some blonde haired woman who appeared almost…elflike, kept refilling my glass with wine.

Sydney- or the drugged dark mistress that was now Sydney, had spoken very little through the feast. And the more I ate the less concerned I got with finding a phone or a way out or even the reason I was here. Everyone was smiling, and I was smiling, and when I was being escorted by the red-headed witch (no amount of alcohol could change my feelings towards her) I was only mildly surprised to see Jack, and I was more concerned about the possibility of him being a hallucination.

"Vaughn." Jack said, sitting up, concern all over him, from his eyes to the way he breathed. "Did you find Sydney?"

"Sydney's…she's…well; I think they've drugged her." I said in a rush, not really sure what to say and still feeling like they might have slipped something in my chicken leg at dinner.

"I see." His forehead wrinkled, and I sat upon the bed wearily. I was sleepy, and his silence was like a lulling wave, washing over me with warm, warm water. Sleep, Michael, it said in a slushy, waterlogged whisper….SLEEEEEEEEEEP.

"Vaughn!" Jack was shaking me, and I felt a jolt. Shit, had I dozed off unwillingly?

"Sorry," I mumbled. "There's a good chance they slipped me something, Jack." I said, seriously, and stood. The bed was bewitched or something. It was the softest thing I had sat upon, and just looking at, judging by appearance alone, it I knew that my initial assessment was impossibly inaccurate.

"Did they tell you anything, Vaughn? Anything about who they are, why they are doing this. What they want with my daughter, anything…"

"They said…" I sat down, thinking hard. There WAS something, it was just obscure and fuzzy, in the back of my mind somewhere, begging exit but already lost on the path. I leaned against the cold stone of the wall, swallowed a great gulp of air, and searched desperately for a shred of clarity.

"They said that Rambaldi had two apprentices, and each of them was granted access to his sketches and designs, so that they could make copies of the master's work. Rambaldi's originals were hidden, and are apparently the ones that we have now, in the CIA's possession. The first apprentice, he made copies but developed a following upon Rambaldi's death. His other assistant, he formed an allegiance of brethren- these people, downstairs, dedicated to bring to fruition Rambaldi's final prophecy. For the end game."

The great swoosh of information came in one good gush, and when I was done saying it I couldn't remember half of what I had said. It was as though the words had been written upon a great chalkboard and each letter as I read it had become erased.

"So, they think that Sydney is the woman in Rambaldi's prophecy?"

"No, Jack." I sank into the bed again, legs blazing from standing so long. "They know she is."

"What do you mean?" It took every bit of my will to not fall upon the pillow. This was important, and yet…yet, I felt to be floating away from it.  Jack was talking so slowly, his voice so low…everything was in slow, slow motion. 

"Rambaldi made liquor, especially for the woman in his prophecy. If she did not die upon drinking it, then she was the one. The golden ticket. The bringer of utter desolation and all that."

"You can't tell me you believe that?"

"Well," I replied, carefully, feeling my legs becoming warbly, painful sticks of aching exhaustion. "I think they believe what they are saying. And I think Sydney did drink the….liquor, because she is not herself. She talks funny. It's like she's being controlled by something." I told him, watching his face go from skeptic to angry in an instant.

"They did drug you, Vaughn. Lie down and sleep it off." Jack bit out the words. I shrugged.

"I haven't slept in days, Jack. It could be sleep delirium." I fell upon the bed, waiting to surrender to darkness. I had this strange compliance with the way things were going. There was nothing I could do. Jack would realize this soon enough. Sydney had succumbed to her fate. It was all going to be okay.

                                                                * * * *

I awoke with a start, jerking around the room and finding myself in the same dungeon. My back ached from the hard surface of the bed and Jack Bristow still was on the floor opposite me, his head in his hands.

Speaking of heads, mine was splitting. Pounding hard, as the events of the night before came back kind of slowly. It wasn't in a rush, but over several minutes the things I did remember- well, they were enough to convince me that some strange shit had gone down.

"Jack." I said, voice hoarse. He shuffled his feet and then opened his eyes. "We need to talk about how we are going to get to find Sydney."

There was a glass next to Jack, and a plate of food that it appeared he had eaten. "Oh Jack," I said, despair creeping into my voice. "Tell me you didn't eat that stuff."

He blinked. Once, twice. And then he started grinning, the widest grin I'd ever seen on anyone's face. From Jack Bristow it was just comic. I would have laughed if the situation were not so dire.

"You were absolutely right about Sydney, Vaughn. She has made the right decision."

"Jack," I said, evenly, trying to not provoke him. "You have been drugged. I need you to listen to me, now, okay?" I squatted down to the side of him, looking into his eyes. "You have to trust me when I tell you that Sydney is going to need both of our help to get out of here, so no more eating and drinking?"

"The food was wonderful, though." Damnit, I thought, and moved away from him. Great. Jack Bristow was incapacitated, Sydney believed she was capable of rendering utter desolation, and I was still stuck in some underground prison. I paced the floor, hearing that Jack had gone back to sleep.

"Michael Vaughn." I'd been so consumed with my own thoughts that I had blocked out the sound of the door opening. 

There she was.

But it wasn't her. Her eyes were staring off into some other universe, some other blue-purple-grey sun that I didn't even want to understand. At that moment, I hated Rambaldi. I hated the fact that she was on some sort of trip that I couldn't penetrate; neither with words or my best plaintive look. She was gone.

She looked at me. "You must have been very worried." Her voice got soft-the way she did when she was concerned about something, it was just, sincere. And for a second I thought I could see her past the whole façade the drug, whatever it was, Rambaldi's…"children"…had put her on.

"I was." Maybe reason would get through to her. Maybe if I talked to her long enough she'd break through the barrier of the draught and talk to me, help us to find a way out of here-

"I hope that you can understand why it is that I am doing this."

"Because you're drugged?" I offered, causing her to spin around to face me.

Now, it was a bit scary, here, being opposite Sydney Bristow with her eyes flaming and the attractive blush she got on her cheeks when she was angry, and I supposed those responses in her body were genetic, or something. Because she looked so familiar, I'd seen her angry countless times, and-

"I'm not drugged." She snapped. "I needed help to see. But now I don't need help anymore, it all makes sense."

"None of this makes sense, Sydney." I grabbed her hand, and she paused in her retreat. "You have to try to concentrate."

Her eyes were sad when they looked up into mine, as though she pitied me for my inability to see the truth for what it was. "Do you know the whole prophecy?" 

"I know the whole "render the greatest power unto utter desolation" bit. Don't tell me there's more?"

"Do you know what the greatest power is?"

"No." I confessed, still connecting my fingers to the bone of her wrist. She was looking at her father, not seeing him at all, eyes watery and unfocused.

"They knew I would come here looking for you if you came here looking for me- does that make sense, Vaughn?" It was as though a switch had been turned on inside her, flicking past the façade. Her voice was fast and forceful. "It was all planned out, do you understand me?"

"Not fully. You're telling me all of this was destined-"

"I'm telling you that I am that woman. Rambaldi's woman that will render utter desolation. I know that. There's nothing I can do to stop it."

"The prophecy is a riddle. I can't answer it for you, but I can tell you that it is true. And there is more to it than the prophecy itself, which is something you also have to understand, Vaughn."

She was so sad about it all. Maudlin and frowning and shaking her head. "I won't let you do this Sydney." I told her forcibly.

"You can't stop me. It's already started, don't you see? I've already done it."

She wrenched her arm free of mine and left me there, despite my calls for her to stay, for her to tell me what she meant. After a great deal of time spent standing, my body aflame with discomfort from what I could only presume was caused by periodic beatings and the rock-hard surface of that mattress-I gave up and sat in the floor, feeling suddenly empty and very, very confused. 

The door opened after a while, the same blonde haired woman from the night before carried in a tray, smiling at me. Her eyes sparkled. 

"Hello again." She said, sweetly. 

"Hello." I replied, regarding her cautiously. The wine was drugged the night before, and I was cautious of anything that might contain some sort of potion intended to make me compliant and fuzzy minded.

"You need to eat. Trust me." She said, looking at me with serious eyes. "I promise you, I will bring you no harm. Never." She sat down the tray and picked up a small cluster of grapes, putting them into her mouth and chewing. She took a small sip from the glass, swallowing carefully. "Everything here is safe."

"Thank you." I said, earnestly, moving to the food, suddenly famished.

She left me to eat, smiling and tucking a twig of her hair behind her ear. I watched her go as I picked from a delicious array of fresh fruit, cheeses and breads. They were incredible, and I couldn't decide what to eat first. Picking up a grape, I swallowed it slowly. It was sweet, and delicious, and I had never been more thankful for anything in my life.

                                                                * * * *

Some time later- the tray finished and relinquished, Jack awoke and seemed clearheaded at a point where I was definitely not. Not from drugs, mind you, but from the near edges of a dream that I was attempting to have before he decided to start talking.

"They drugged me!" He said, angrily, and I nodded.

 "I know. It's ridiculous."

"What happened? What's wrong with you? Did they drug you again?"

"No." I said. "I'm exhausted."

"Well, sleep then." He commanded, and I was hesitant to comply. 

"I don't want to not help Sydney."

"You can't help Sydney if you're tired. Sleep an hour. I'll wake you up if anything happens."

So I listened to him, and when I woke up I was alone, and it was darker than it had been, and I felt worse than ever. There must have been some sort of fire in the dungeon tonight, and the warmth was making me sweat.

Jack's absence was alarming but not wholly unexpected. I've come to expect that things are never going to go according to any plan that I manage to create or try to follow. So, instead, I stared at the stone block ceiling and tried to solve the Rambaldi riddle.

Now, I could remember my re-writing it a thousand times back in March, when Sydney had been at risk for becoming the government's property. I had analyzed it from every angle looking for a loophole, but I hadn't thought about what the cloak-and-dagger phrases had to do with much of anything in a real, tangible sense.

I'd go step by step, I decided: "Unless prevented, at vulgar cost,-". Vulgar cost. What did that mean? Death?  But no, vulgar had nothing to do with death. Unless prevented, at vulgar- Wrong. Improper. Crude. What the hell did that have to do with anything?  I skipped to the next bit. "This woman will render the greatest power unto utter desolation." That was obvious. Well, aside from my wondering at what the greatest power was--

I decided to skip over that too. Maybe the clue to solving it all was in the next section. "This woman, without pretense, will have had her effect," well, that was straight-forward enough, but how did it make sense of the whole Mount Sebacio thing- "never having seen the beauty of my sky beyond Mount Sebacio." How could it be Sydney?

"Perhaps a single glance will have quelled her fire." Well, obviously not. Syd was hell-bent on death and destruction; she believed that part of "it"- whatever it was, had already come to fruition. None of it made sense, and my head was hurting, and there was this odd pressure behind my eyes. 

In an instant, though, she was again beside me, and I was amazed I hadn't heard her enter. She was looking down at me, very sad and forlorn.

"Did you solve the riddle yet?" Sydney's mouth asked, sitting at my bedside. All the heat I had felt earlier had amplified by ten, but she looked as though she were cold. Her arms were wrapped around her elbows and she almost seemed as though she was shivering.

"No, I tried." I confessed, looking up into her eyes, feeling very strange. It was becoming very hard to breathe.

"Let me see your hand?" She asked. Her eyes were open, now, wide. It looked most like her, the Sydney I knew, not some zombie. I gave her my hand, palm up, and she laid hers flat against mine.

"I'll start with the beginning. There are things that you can't prevent. Especially if you are the outcome of something that was always outside of your control. There's always the past, and try as we'd like, we can't change that. And sometimes, sometimes, it controls our futures, this past you can't fix or hope to repair. Am I making sense?"

She ran her fingers to the top of mine, and my eyes felt so very heavy. "Yes." I said, dreamily.

"When these things happen-these things in the past- we become shaped by them. By other people's actions and decisions."

Suddenly, everything she was saying made perfect sense. I looked up at her, eyes locking. She seemed to feel my excitement, and leaned forward slightly. "I know what it is. It's you-- You're the effect."

"Yes." She answered, smiling. "My mother could not be prevented from deceiving my father. She gave birth to me- rendering, so to speak, the greatest power. Irina had her "effect". The portrait on the Rambaldi's page was the portrait of her daughter; me."

"It makes so much sense now." I breathed, staring up at her. She was getting glossy around the edges, hazy.  "But what did you mean when you told me it had already started?"

"You have to lie down." She pushed at my chest, and I was so hot, sweat ran down my forehead into my eyes. Every bit of me was burning, and she seemed to understand this without my saying anything.

"You're very sick." Sydney told me, fumbling at her side for something that looked like a syringe.

"Do you remember Taipei? Do you remember that I set off explosives that would destroy a Rambaldi device? Do you remember?" She was more and more like herself each minute that passed, and I was so thankful that whatever that liquor had been it was finally wearing off on her. 

"I remember." I said, though it was becoming so hard to talk.

"You were exposed to a virus, do you remember? A virus that defies all logical scientific explanation. That virus, Vaughn. You have that virus. Do you understand?"

"Yes." I might have said it. I might have thought it. And then there was this pain, this burning sensation that started at my wrist and rushed up my arm. Following it was an intense cold that washed over all the heat in my skin.

"I just gave you the antidote, Vaughn." She told me, so fuzzy, and I opened my eyes. "Do you believe in destiny? Do you believe in fate?"

But her voice was so far away that I wasn't even sure I heard the questions. And I could remember so much: this vision of me standing in my bathroom, reflected in the mirror as I watched something red—blood, run down the sink. My blood, trickling along my fingers and over my hand, a tiny stream down the too-white porcelain of the basin.  Sydney, by my side before I sunk into a sleep so deep that it felt endless. Seeing her, above my bed, just now-

I opened my eyes. And at once I was aware of the sounds of beeping and a steadily haphazard hissing, and everything around me was so overwhelmingly bright.

My lips were moving, and something was coming out, but my ears were overwhelmed by the machinery too much to hear whatever words that they were.  I couldn't hear myself, couldn't see in this light.

"Michael, Michael, I know, sweetie, I know." I could hear a voice…so familiar, but everything was still so loud... I tried to bring my hand to my face but found it a messy strand of tubing and wires that came from every direction.   
  


I blinked. Opened my eyes again, orienting myself to the light. Hospital. And I had stopped talking. There was a woman by my bed, and I realized slowly that it was Alice, and that I must have been dreaming, or something, but I couldn't tell what was real. Was this a dream, or had everything else been one long nightmare?

 She, Alice was calling for the nurse. Her body was twisted behind her and she was calling out, over and over. And I could remember this place, from some in-between-time where I thought I was dreaming; but it had been dreams within dreams of what was really going on. There was no riddle and there had been no Sydney and Alice was squeezing my hand so hard I thought my fingers were going to crack from the pressure.

She smiled down at me, tears in those wide, blue, familiar eyes. "I love you too, sweetie." She said, pressing a kiss on my forehead. "I love you too."

                                                                * * * *  

There are times that you will find yourself questioning your own boundaries of living, wondering possibly there is something beyond you and the mendacity of your chosen day to day existence. There is no more persuasive a tool than the threat of death, of imminent destruction, of the final chapter in a life so gallantly lived. In the desperate hours of what might be the end, it is easy to fabricate a place where things have more meaning, life becomes less obscure and more purposeful, and we understand- the things hidden, kept in silence, kept in the darkest dungeons of our own primordial hearts.

                                                                * * * *

A/N: A few shout-outs. One, to fred, for coming up with the finer points of the challenge. She's the greatest. Secondly, the whole "A virus that defines all logical scientific explanation" was so reminiscent of Scully, but it's dedicated to Jess---only because the virus really does defy all logical scientific explanation, as she so well knows.

Feedback: Appreciated, most assuredly. Aliasfanfiction@hotmail.com

 "Farscape" is property of FOX/USA/SCI FI; "Twilight Zone" (1958-62) belongs to Rod Serling, Richard Matheson, and Charles Beaumont, as well as others, and CBS. No copyright infringement intended.

The Rambaldi Prophecy, in case you forgot:

 "Unless prevented, at vulgar cost, this woman will render the greatest power unto utter desolation. This woman, without pretense, will have had her effect. Never having seen the beauty of my sky beyond Mount Sebacio. Perhaps a single glance will have quelled her fire."


End file.
